Iran Just Played Trump... and Won? (Condensed)

[00:00:00]How's it going? Chuck Holton here coming to you from the mountains of Armenia.

[00:00:04]And we've got a sudden ceasefire in Lebanon between not the Lebanese army and the United States, which is most of the ceasefires that we've had to date in that country, but we actually have a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

[00:00:21]This just happened and it's shocking actually. But it appears that the Iranians and the United States have put enough pressure on their allies Hezbollah and and Israel to get them to stop fighting even though Hezbollah will have to wait and see. They have a bad habit of going ahead and breaking those ceasefires on a regular basis. That's kind of stuff happens a lot in that part of the world. And when it comes to the memorandum of understanding, Iran Pinky promises not to get nuclear weapons and the United States releases $1 trillion of aid for Iran. The administration's been getting a lot of push back on this memorandum of understanding to the point where at the G7, President Trump was speaking and he just was talking like this is just real low energy and he he seemed chasened somewhat. He seemed humbled somewhat because a lot of people, even people within his own party, are saying, "Hey, this looks a whole lot like a capitulation on the part of the United States." The Iranians are giddy because they're now in a stronger position than they were at the beginning of the war. They are still exercising control over the Straight of Hormuz. And here's the crazy thing about this memorandum of understanding. Number one, it does not address the main issues that we were going to war over to begin with, which is the nuclear material, the highlyenriched uranium, the nuclear program, etc. Now, unbeknownst to everybody, JD Vance answered a question on that topic yesterday in a press conference at the White House and said, "Oh, no. The Iranians did agree to destroy all of their highlyenriched uranium. Take a listen.

[00:02:22]>> That Iran will only reap economic rewards if they comply and change their behavior. But under this deal, they are being allowed now to sell their oil freely. Again, how is that not a financial benefit? And they're being allowed to do that without making any new concrete nuclear commitments. So, can you explain how is that not lopsided?

[00:02:40]>> First of all, they've made very concrete nuclear commitments. They have committed to the destruction of the highlyenriched stockpile that they have in their possession. But number two, all we've done is lift the blockade and the straits of we basically returned it to where it was before the conflict. The blockade is off. We put that in after the conflict started. The straits are now open. That's not a new benefit to the Iranians. They were selling oil for many years before we ever put the blockade. We opposed that blockade. They stopped selling oil. And now we've lifted the blockade in order to promote the free flow of energy across the world.

[00:03:13]>> Okay, so this is there's a lot to unpack here with this and I want to just try to take it point by point. First, he says that the Iranians have agreed to destroy their highlyenriched uranium. If you go back and read the memorandum of understanding that was signed by President Trump, there's no mention of the highlyenriched uranium at all in the memorandum of understanding. So if somebody told JD Vance on the phone, "Oh yeah, we'll destroy our highly enriched uranium." It ain't in writing and we can't even trust what the Iranians put in writing, much less what they don't put in writing. So that's false, I believe. Secondly, he said, "The lifting the blockade, we're just putting it back to the way it was before the war started." The unfortunate thing about that is that the Iranians are not putting it back to the way it was before the war started. JD Vance goes on to say that the straits are are open now for commerce except they're not because Iran changed their mind and reclosed the straits of Hormuz today in response to the fighting that's going on in Lebanon.

[00:04:22]So that's wrong as well. And then he goes on to say that Iran is they've always been selling oil. We're not they're not making any money from us.

[00:04:32]This is we're he he's dodging the question. The question was how is it not a benefit to Iran for them to be able to sell their oil and his answer is they were always able to sell their oil and so it's not a benefit. What I'm what I don't I don't get what he's saying here.

[00:04:52]The other thing that he fails to point out is that Iranian oil has been under sanction for a decade or more than that.

[00:04:59]And so they haven't actually been able to freely sell their oil like they are now. By the way, when the blockade started and I'm sorry, when the war started and the price of oil went up, President Trump in an attempt to keep prices down, keep them from going through the roof, issued waiverss to Russia so that Russia can sell its oil without sanctions. Now, as well, they there's been no mention of rolling those back now that we have a quote unquote ceasefire. Mike Pompeo went on Fox News and explained why this is one one reason why this is such a bad idea. And listen what he had to say. I think he described it pretty well.

[00:05:42]>> We now are going to say it's okay for them to have missiles. We're going to we're going to allow them to have money.

[00:05:47]And vice president said no American money. Martha, it doesn't matter if it's American money or not. They're not going to use it to build a health care system.

[00:05:54]The sanctions relief that we're about to provide them is going to give them billions of dollars and they'll rebuild many of their programs. And so that's the second and that's a mistake. And the third one is this idea that somehow there are Iranian moderates. There's no such thing. These are all radical Islamists. And so only time will tell how this agreement will play out and what really happens on the ground. But to think because the Iranians have signed a piece of paper saying that they won't procure a nuclear weapon or that they'll leave the straight of Hormuz open and won't use their continued leverage, their ability to influ put mines in the water in the straight of Hormuz. That would be a mistake in agreement to decide that that's okay given all the work that we've done so far and with all the leverage that we have as it sits today.

[00:06:34]>> He's absolutely right about that 100%.

[00:06:38]Uh, I agree totally with everything he said there. And you don't have to believe me. You can believe the Iranians themselves. Here's the mayor of Thrron who today or yesterday came out on national television in Iran and here's what he said about the war.

[00:06:55]>> News. The war has not ended. Our war with America is an existential war and it has been going on for 47 years and it has various dimensions. But in its military dimension, why is it existential?

[00:07:12]Because the Iranian nation has rejected the order established after the second world war and the Islamic revolution has trampled it and they cannot accept that their country becomes a model and an inspiration for others. It has not allowed the great Satan to exert its wicked nature. Therefore, it is an existential aspect. We are pursuing a civilizational perspective. The new Islamic civilization is the prelude to the reappearance. We have a civilizational perspective and we see >> now you notice he just he just mentioned the reappearance of the mahi in his branch of Islam. What it would take for the reappearance of the madi would be essentially the apocalypse. Meaning they believe that it's on them. The Iranians need to bring about the apocalypse in order for the for their savior to come.

[00:08:04]As always, this shows that Islam is a death cult and whether or not they are Shiite. They're still a death cult. So, these are the people that we're negotiating with that we're saying, "Yeah, we can trust them. They'll agree.

[00:08:21]They they told us on the phone they would agree to the destruction of their highly enriched uranium." He's literally calling for the apocalypse here.

[00:08:29]building a strong Iran as its prerequisite, its prelude, and they do not want this strong Iran to take shape.

[00:08:35]Therefore, it is perfectly clear that we are in the midst of a war. This war must lead to a greater victory following this one. We are currently in the middle of the arena like two wrestlers who have finished the first round. In terms of points, their score is extraordinary, but we have not yet secured the 10 main points to raise our hand in victory, nor have we pinned the opponent. In the second round, we need to catch our breath, get motivated, and analyze the first part of our fight. As we enter the second threeinut round, we must approach it with a completely different perspective.

[00:09:19]Therefore, we have now achieved the baseline of victory. But this victory has a second stage. We haven't reached it yet. We must move toward it, which is in fact for the shadow of the threat to be lifted from Iran. So they won't dare to threaten us and our restrictions will be lifted.

[00:09:37]>> Okay. So this is the mayor of Tyrron putting up all of that garbage.

[00:09:42]Unfortunately, that's how a lot of people around the world feel that Iran actually won this round. Now, President Trump was pretty livid over these statements. As a matter of fact, they had a written statement released by ostensibly the new Ayatollah, the Moha Kamei, who has not been seen in public since the war began and has not even been heard in public.

[00:10:08]So, no TV or radio appearances, no wrote recorded sounds of his voice, nothing.

[00:10:14]Just written messages that come out ostensibly in his name. But we don't have any idea who's actually writing those things. Nevertheless, I'm going to read you some parts of what the statement from Kamei said about this agreement. It said in the name of God blah blah blah to the passion of blah blah blah. As you have been informed, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the presidents of Iran and America. In the course of reaching this stage, the officials in charge out of sincere concern and goodwill made extensive efforts. And of course, it was the American president who out of desperation used all kinds of leverage to bring this about. President Trump was not happy with that. So he put out a truth social post in which he said the following. We didn't meet out of desperation. Iran did. We'll play out the 60 days. They get no money, not 10 cents. So President Trump pushing back on the Makta Hami. The problem is how many he was actually correct that President Trump it did employ all kinds of leverage and leverage about Lebanon over Lebanon leverage on Israel. Okay.

[00:11:24]So apparently that leverage has borne fruit because it's being reported now just in the last few hours that Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a ceasefire. President Trump was telling Israel, you cannot strike in Lebanon.

[00:11:40]You got to stop. You got to stop killing people in Lebanon. You're just killing too many people. JD Vance came out and said, "Look, Israel can't kill its way out of every problem." And in response to that, the defense minister, take take a listen to what he had to say because I I'm just trying to show you all sides here. And this is it's hard. It's hard to do. I'm trying to give you less my opinion about it and just what they're saying. So here's what Benvir says about >> are ours absolutely for the defense of the eastern border and everything because what really hurts the jihadists here maybe if you kill them personally but when you kill people they use as cover they don't care but when you take their land and destroy their homes and that is what we did today by the way it was approved >> so he's talking about destroying their homes so what he was saying is that in southern Lebanon they have the entire first layer of villages in the southern part of Lebanon closest to the Israeli border have been raised to the ground.

[00:12:42]They've been turned into Gaza. And he says the people that lived there are not coming back. They don't have anything to come back to. We are going to create a buffer zone. Now, President Trump said, "You got to stop that. You got to stop killing. You can't just keep killing everybody. Israel's you want to see us killing our way out of this?" A Hezbollah drone struck a merk of a tank in southern Lebanon yesterday and killed four IDF soldiers. Then Benjamin Netanyahu said to the IDF, "Pull out all the stops.

[00:13:23]Strike very hard." and they made more than 200 strikes on about 80 different locations in the past 12 hours. And now they're declaring, "Okay, we're done.

[00:13:35]So, as long as Hezbollah doesn't fire anymore at us, we won't fire anymore at them. But if they fire anymore at us, we're going to keep firing back at them." The crazy thing about this memorandum of understanding that I was talking about earlier is it hinges the success of thisou hinges on the performance of two people who were not party to the agreement. Two groups Hezbollah and Israel. Neither of them were invited to the table to talk about the memorandum of understanding.

[00:14:08]But it appears that the United States has put sufficient pressure on Israel to get them to declare a stop and Iran has put sufficient pressure on Hezbollah to get them to declare a stop. And so for the time being, for the moment at least, there's no more fighting going on in Lebanon. Now, how long that lasts is anybody's guess, but if you are a supporter of Israel, and I am, hearing my president say things like this is pretty painful. Here's what he said in an Axio interview last night.

[00:14:44]>> To control Israel from attacking Lebanon.

[00:14:48]>> Yeah, well, I wonder.

[00:14:50]>> They have a lot of respect for me and they do as I say. They have a lot of respect for me and they do as I say. To me, that's to the level where if I were an Israeli, I would be if I were the Israeli prime minister, I would be saying we are going to make it clear to President Trump that he does not control. He's not the president of Israel. And so, again, we're continuing to dump on our allies while we cozy up to our enemies. And this is not good.